Honky by Dalton Conley Race Research Paper

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The disjoint between the white and black American realities was already evident at the start of the chapter, wherein he demonstrated the "flower box movement" as a reflection of the white American society's lack of understanding of poverty and inequality, wherein flower boxes were promoted in houses in the Projects to 'beautify' the social environment, subsisting to the belief that "poverty was primarily an aesthetic problem. If we could just spruce things up a bit, we'd all have more hope; we might even become middle class" (19). In fact, the Projects became a venue where marginalized groups converge and create their own worlds, mainly to be apart from the affluent white Americans.

Conley's neighborhood symbolized poverty and downward mobility that his family went through, although the author contended, as claimed by his parents, that it was the family's deliberate choice to live in the Projects rather than in a middle class neighborhood. His father and mother's backgrounds reflected this deliberate choice; both lived lives that deviated from what normal white Americans would experience. Conley's mother was a Jew who perceived the world as "divided into two racial categories: Jewish and other" (23). His father, meanwhile, 'broke ranks' with the normal path that he was perceived to take as a white American, choosing to live like his mother who always challenged the notion of class and undermined the elite class (32). The author's roots emanated the 'deviance streak' he was also bound to experience and live with as he grew up in a lower class-dominated neighborhood in New York.

From the author's narrative, it became apparent that downward mobility was but a state imposed upon his family because they chose to live with African-Americans rather than assimilate themselves with middle class life, the way white Americans should.

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Conley's parents' realities allowed them to see the world through a different lens; the norm for them was actually the "exception" to the rule, as the author had described his life early on in the book (xi). In so doing, they also allowed Conley to see racial differences from a different perspective. What was the norm for the author was that American society is composed of a multitude of cultural differences, race included. And what surprised him was the existence of discrimination against race, that social inequality and poverty could happen just because one race is perceived to be more superior to the other.

In effect, downward mobility as defined in Honky was a phenomenon perceived to have happened to the Conley family, when, in fact, Conley and his family felt and believed otherwise. Moments when they felt they were actually moving downward the class hierarchy was when people made judgments; otherwise, everyday life meant surviving poverty and securing safety for the family, realities that people fear about everyday, white and black Americans alike. Honky is a personal narrative and walk-through in the life of the author, giving his so-called descent from middle to lower class in the American society a different interpretation, seen from the sociological perspective. Downward mobility in Honky's terms meant assimilation with the marginalized groups of American society, but more for the understanding and empathy, rather than detriment of the Conley family, the only white American family in their Projects neighborhood.

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